Slapped
by gypsy season
Summary: House has some questions when Wilson shows up to work with a handprint on his face.


**Slapped**

It was darker than skin and lighter than a bruise, the red almost-hand shaped splotch on Wilson's left cheek that was impossible to miss, and impossible for House to ignore.

"Get in a fight?" he said, lowering himself into the seat across from Wilson, who was sulking over his equally sad looking pasta.

Wilson raised his head and his eyebrows, stupidly uttering, "What?"

It looked like he had been slapped. Hard… The handprint, not the expression on his face, which at that moment looked more like he had just been pantsed, not slapped.

"Don't tell me you haven't looked in the mirror today. I thought that was, like, your morning, like… routine?" he said mockingly.

"Oh, yeah," Wilson shrugged with nonchalance. "It's nothing."

"It's a hand," House said, staring at it. "On your face. Who'd you piss off?"

Wilson sighed and unconsciously rubbed the side of his face as House reached across the table and hijacked his soda. He figured that House was already working out every possible idea in his head with which to explain the mark on his face, so he just shook his head.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"Who says I'm worried?" House said, pushing the soda back towards Wilson, completely ignoring the fact that it was now empty.

"Right, you never worry about anyone," Wilson said angrily.

"I'm curious," House said, innocently enough, resting his elbows on the table and leaning in closer.

"Well I'm not in the mood to feed your addiction," Wilson said despondently, oblivious to the slip he had made in word choice until he saw that look that had just washed over House's face, like he was planning a really great way to call him out for it. House was known for his addictions to vicodin and puzzles, and Wilson could prove that the problem was not the puzzles. But he wrote the scrips, he got House his vicodin.

In fact, on particularly sad days, like when he lost a patient, or when he came to work with a handprint on his face, Wilson was convinced that the vicodin was the only reason why House still hung around him. Only after he could find a way to cheer up would he wonder why this thought would upset him so much.

He only hoped his friend would ignore the slip and get past the impasse and just let him finish eating. He didn't want this kind of prodding today, didn't feel strong enough.

"That's funny," House said, sadistically unrelenting to the very end. "Because I was just thinking-"

"Alright! Fine! Great! I don't want to hear what you think!" Wilson shouted at the top of his sad little voice, succeeding in catching House off guard and shutting him up just long enough to give him a window through which he could awkwardly jump out of the chair, stumble over one of the legs of said chair, and striding out of the cafeteria as if he hadn't.

Inwardly wincing at how immature he was acting, Wilson grit his teeth and beat a door with his fist as he left House behind him.

"Is it PMS?" House called after him, already picking up Wilson's fork and pulling the pasta towards him. "Was CVS out of tampons?"

---

It was the end of the day when House saw Wilson again, in the parking garage, and Wilson ignored him. So House said nothing, and just followed him home instead, grinning smugly whenever Wilson tried to switch lanes with every intention of losing House.

"I know where you live, moron," he said to himself.

House surveyed the block as he made his way up to Wilson's front door just two minutes after Wilson, and was pleasantly surprised when his friend actually opened it; he looked defeated and miserable. The red mark still showed on his cheek, but had faded enough so that is looked less like a hand and more like Wilson had just gone for a run.

"Her car's not here," House pointed out, having scanned the driveway and street for wife number 2's bitch-mobile.

"It's in the garage," Wilson said, not even missing a beat.

House smirked. "No it isn't."

So much of their conversations went unspoken, they knew each other that well. When they talked, the usual "What's the matter?" or even "What happened" were usually discarded. House always knew when something was wrong, and he always figured out what had happened to cause such wrongs, eventually. Those extra words just seemed to waste time and breath.

At Wilson's silence, House said, "Aren't you even going to try to prove me wrong?"

Resigning in defeat, Wilson backed away from the door, giving House room to enter. "If I did, you would just check the garage."

"So why waste your time?"

Wilson glared at him incredulously; "You followed me home."

"So," House said as he surveyed the living room he had just stepped into, where all around him were signs of a battle. An upturned corner of a rug, picture frames tipped over, shattered dishes on the floor; all obvious, all painfully obvious, and all painful.

But Wilson was not even paying attention to him. He, too, was looking around his home, his fingers unconsciously worrying at his left sleeve.

"So," House said again, then added much too casually, "she left you."

Very softly, as if afraid to utter the word, Wilson said, "Yes."

"Wife number two, then," House said briskly, and dismissed the concept of the bitch within seconds. "Do you think you're going to get another?"

"That is so dehumanizing," Wilson objected with disgust. "Don't even-"

His words were cut off abruptly by a choked sob that he didn't realize he was trying to swallow. House turned away from surveying the mess to see his friend bent over the counter, leaning heavily on his right arm, with his left hand pressed to his forehead, his face screwed up with pain.

"Shit…" A minor detail that House had overlooked was that Wilson was still wearing his wedding ring.

"This morning," Wilson beat his fist against the counter. His shoulders and voice both trembled. "She was here… this morning."

House listened, and waited, leaning awkwardly on his cane among shards of china plats and Wilson's marriage. After a moment, Wilson let his hand fall from his face, which was now all red instead of just splotched.

"We had a fight. We had a fight and… I didn't think she was going to…"

"You mean you didn't even know?" It was House's turn to be thrown off guard, as much as he allowed of himself.

Wilson shook his head, eyes downcast. "I just came home. Just _fucking _now, Greg."

So that whole day, House realized, Wilson had gone through that whole day thinking he and his wife had but disagreed, not actually separated. While he worked his hide off trying to cure cancer, he must have been coming up with the world's best apology speech, which he planned to deliver to his wife upon returning home.

From the state that he was presently in, House could tell that he was not faking the shock of coming home to another ruined marriage. Literally, just coming home to it.

Shit…

"Can I come to your place?" Wilson asked weakly, just as House had lowered himself onto the nearest couch.

"We're both here. That would be a little stupid."

Wilson tried making himself laugh, but failed both miserably and awkwardly as he looked around his home, a terribly helpless and desperate expression on his face. "I just don't want to be here, you know?"

House glared at him. "I just sat down."

"Then stay. I have your key."

What House saw on his friend's face was a struggle. There were red-rimmed eyes trying desperately to blink away tears, which wanted nothing more than to slide down Wilson's cheeks. There was also Wilson's manhood and Wilson's dignity, neither of which wanting to be undermined.

So House planted his cane and hoisted himself up. "I'll drive. And then you can ice your face."

Wilson tried to smile, succeeding only in looking even more miserable. "Thank you," he supplied feebly, knowing that words never meant as much as they used to, and that a lumpy couch could almost become something to look forward to after going to work with a handprint on his face, and coming home to find that he was all alone, yet again.


End file.
